Airborne Particle Measuring Device

1. An airborne particle sensing device comprising: at least one particle sensor, said at least one particle sensor comprising: a single high-power laser light source that emits light at a single wavelength in a range of less than or equal to 500nm; a reflector having a reflective surface tuned to a frequency band that includes the single wavelength of said laser; and a photodetector that detects photons emitted by said laser and reflected toward said photodetector by said reflector, the photons being scattered as the light emitted by said laser strikes particles suspended in an air sample, said photodetector generating a pulse for each scattered photon detected; wherein the device further comprises: a memory having stored therein instructions executable by the processor for: counting each generated pulse and calculating a size for the particle corresponding to each pulse; and implementing on said display a graphical user interface that reports a particle size for each particle counted on a continuous scale in real time; wherein at least said at least one particle sensor, said processor, said memory and said display are integrated as a handheld particle analyzer.

2. The device of claim 1 , further comprising: an ambient condition sensor; and a pressure sensor; wherein said particle sensor, said ambient condition sensor and said pressure sensor are coupled in series.

3. The device of claim 2 , wherein said ambient condition sensor comprises: at least one temperature sensor; and at least one relative humidity sensor.

4. The device of claim 2 , wherein said pressure sensor comprises: at least one pressure sensor for measuring a pressure differential; and at least one pressure sensor for measuring ambient pressure.

5. The device of claim 1 , said pressure sensor comprising a flow sensor for measuring pressure drop of sampled air as it traverses said flow path within said device, wherein data from said flow sensor is utilized by said processor to compensate and correct volumetric flow rate.

6. The device of claim 1 , further comprising a vacuum pump for drawing an ambient air sample into an air inlet of said device and for pumping the ambient air sample along a flow path defined by said device.

7. The device of claim 1 , further comprising computer-readable instructions embodied in said memory, which when executed by said processor perform at least one of: acquiring a full particle size spectrum; directly acquiring and logging size information for every one and all particles entering the sensor; incorporating pulse height analysis (PHA) of quantity of pulses versus pulse voltage and particle size within the device at a controlled volume flow rate; displaying quantity of particles versus particle size on a continuous scale in real time; measuring a specific particle size within +/−2 nanometers; and measuring particles having a minimum size of 0.2 μm (200 nanometers).

8. The device of claim 1 , further comprising a cuboid sensor body, said cuboid sensor body defining a sensing chamber, said cuboid sensor body further defining a single opening on each face of said cuboid sensor body, each such opening communicating with the sensing chamber, wherein each of said laser light source, said reflector and said photodetector is fixedly received by a separate one of said openings such that each one of said laser light source, said reflector and said photodetector is disposed at 90 degrees to the remaining ones; wherein a flow path of the air sample traverses opposing ones of said openings such that the flow path is disposed at 90degrees to each of said laser light source, said reflector and said photodetector; and wherein a light sink is fixedly received at an opening opposing that opening wherein the laser light source is received.

9. The device of claim 1 , wherein said laser light source comprises a laser diode having an average power consumption of at least 50 milliwatts (mW).

10. The device of claim 1 , wherein said reflector comprises: a mirror having a reflective surface upon which one or more dielectric coatings are disposed that tune the reflective surface of the mirror to the laser wavelength.

11. The device of claim 1 , wherein said device detects particles in a size range of approximately 25 microns to 200 nanometers.

12. The device of claim 1 , wherein said display further comprises a graphical user interface, whereby a user employs a touch interface to select between a plurality of operating modes.

13. The device of claim 1 , wherein power to said laser light source is variable, resulting in an increased dynamic range, thereby expanding the range of particle size detectable with said device.